Arab Liberals Lament: Here's How the Muslim Brotherhood is Fooling the West

By Barry Rubin

Since we can’t get good coverage of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the Western media it’s necessary to turn to the Islamists’ intended victims--Arab liberals—to get a better picture.

NowLebanon explains it all to you in an article on what it calls the “media blitz” of the Muslim Brotherhood and its politicians in the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). It writes:

“Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been displaying great skill in handling the media over the past year. Since the revolution last January and the party’s electoral success in the recent round of polls in the country, the Brotherhood’s media outlets have tirelessly tried to project an image of moderation. But many secularists and leftists remain suspicious.”

The problem is that it has had the full cooperation of the Western media and governments in selling itself as moderate. Here are the NowLebanon talking points:

--“`The Brotherhood is very savvy and clever when it comes to the media, and they know their audience very well. They certainly have very good media advisors,’ says Khaled Fahmy, professor of History at the American University in Cairo.”

--“The Brotherhood has set up a TV channel and a newspaper, and both it and the FJP have been keeping daily-updated websites in English and Arabic.

--Their Twitter page, Ikhwanweb, has almost 8,500 followers. The managers of the account regularly engage their followers in lively discussions, and the Brotherhood's party is the only one in Egypt that has its own smartphone App.

 Click here to read the entire article

Why Do Iranians and Turks Want Arabs To Fight Jews?

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By Barry Rubin

If you want to understand how the debate goes in the Arabic-speaking world and the ways liberals there try to get across their message, there’s nothing better to read than Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed’s article, “Erdogan...Fulfill Your Promises.” It’s also very easy to misunderstand this kind of talk so let’s go through it together.

Rashed is one of the Arab world’s best journalists and is a liberal-minded reformer, as much as one can be while working for media owned by Gulf Arab shaykhs. He is  now general manager of al-Arabiya television network, set up by the United Arab Emirates partly to counter the more radical (and Qatar-owned) al-Jazira network. He is also former editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned al-Sharq al-Awsat which may be the best Arab-language newspaper nowadays.

Yet so powerful is the dominant radical ideology that here’s what Rashed has to do in order to express his views:

He must pretend to champion the radical argument: Yes, Israel is a terrible aggressive state. We must be ready to fight! But, wait a minute. Who are the real cowards here, the ones who won’t stand up against the enemy? They are the ones who promise to be brave warriors and don’t do anything! Let us not listen to these people and be lured into battle only to be betrayed and defeated by their hypocrisy and treason.

I’ve put the argument into my own words but it’s an accurate reflection of his writing. How do I know Rashed is pretending to believe this? Because I’ve followed his work carefully and the note of sarcasm is also clear to me.

OK, let’s go through the article. He begins:

“We have gotten used to hearing Iran and the eager Arab countries threatening Israel whenever there is a glimmer of a threat to Lebanon or the Palestinians....We have been driven to despair from this; these slogans have been exhausted and we have never seen – not even once – any application of this on the ground to the point that some people believe that the objective of these slogans is to revive the conflict, rather than deter Israeli aggression.”

In other words, people are telling others to go out and fight Israel. We will help you, they say. But  then they stand by and do nothing.

While this is true in terms of direct involvement, of course, Iran and Syria do give large amounts of money and weapons that make it possible for Hamas and Hizballah to fight Israel. That’s why radicals won’t pay attention to people like Rashed, and that’s also why Western states need to understand the role of Tehran and Damascus in destabilizing the entire region. But to make his case Rashed must ignore this point.

Notice, however, something very important Rashed says: the phrase “revive the conflict.” A conflict can only be revived if it's inactive. As I’ve pointed out, none of the Arab states except Syria really is actively involved in conflict with Israel today. As I've been pointing out for years (and is now confirmed by Wikileaks) almost all of them are more worried about Iran than Israel. Rashed’s phrase demonstrates that fact.

Something here stirred my memory. Let me repeat the key phrase from Rashed that did so:

“We have been driven to despair from this; these slogans have been exhausted and we have never seen – not even once–any application of this on the ground….”

I flashed back to this statement:

“Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet….”

That was written by Constantine Zurayk in his 1956 book on the Arab defeat in the 1948 war. How little has changed in the regional discourse and world view!

Back to Rashed. His specific complaint is the provocative remark made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which I’ve already written about HERE, implying Turkey would fight in any war between Israel and Hizballah or Hamas.

Rashed writes:

“We are worried that the frustrated Arabs who cling to any hope with regards to confronting Israel will be fooled again. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated such slogans many times but did not lift a finger when Lebanon and the Gaza Strip were attacked….[Erdogan] will not lift a finger in the event of any Israeli attack."

From an Arab point of view, and this is an undertone in Rashed’s article, the Arabs have reached the point where they are being pushed by non-Arab Iranians and Turks to fight the Jews. This might conceivably insult Arab nationalism." In fact, given the ideological hysteria, it has merely made Ahmadinejad and Erdogan more popular among Arabs.

Rashed calls Erdogan’s bluff. If he means what he says about sending his army to fight Israel, Rashed remarks, that’s great because it would deter Israel from attacking. Maybe the Turkish threat would also:

“Create a new reality for the Arabs that will force the current hard-line Israeli leadership to accept negotiations.”

Actually, Rashed knows better than this. Israel has been seeking negotiations for two years and the Palestinians have been refusing. But if Rashed says this he would be too far outside the Arab consensus and he'd be denounced as a Zionist agent. Come to think of it, a lot of the Western media reports the same falsehood about Israel blocking negotiations.

Rashed then goes on to taunt Erdogan who, despite all his tough talk, didn’t even take revenge for the Turks killed in the Gaza flotilla. In the event of war, then, the Turkish regime would merely denounce Israel, warns Rashed. But all the Arab countries, Rashed says, do that every day and this rhetoric does them no good.

Here is Rashed's main point, such "verbal support" merely "encourages more adventures, and results in huge loses for the Arab side....The Arabs are tired of visitors coming to see its destroyed homes, hospitals full of the injured, and its cemeteries and graveyards."

Yet Rashed no doubt knows all too well that a large number of Arabs--most importantly the revolutionary Islamists--are by no means tired. They are eager for more destruction and martyrs. And the majority can either be mobilized to cheer them or intimidated into silence. This--not Jewish settlements on the West Bank, not U.S foreign policy, not Islamophobia--is the great Arab tragedy of our time.

At least, though, people like Rashed and those in Arab leadership who see reality (even if they never admit it publicly) can keep Arab countries from being dragged into war with Israel. That is, unless they are overthrown by revolutionary Islamist movements some day.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

The Sad Fate of Arab Moderates and The Arab World’s Tragic Success in Not Needing Them Any More

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By Barry Rubin

You have to feel sorry for those courageous enough to be Arab moderates. Most of your countrymen hate you, the government wants to crush you, the Islamists want to kill you, and the West doesn’t want to help you. I told this story in my book, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East. (more information; order)

Despite all the endless talk of finding moderates in the Arab world, the real ones—few and far between—generally get ignored while preening, posturing extremists are treated as romantic figures.

So given all this pressure, the limited space permitted for free thought, the moderates have to talk like radicals to survive. In political terms, faced with the battle between the two giant movements of Islamism and Arab nationalism, they have to choose sides. Most liberals back their governments even though these are repressive dictatorships as a lesser of two evils to living under an Iran-, Gaza-, or Taliban-type state.

Except for some in Egypt, almost all the liberals pick the nationalists over the Islamists. I always think of the case of the Syrian dissident who'd spent some nasty time in prison and in an interview referred to the Syrian government as “fascist” but then, a few minutes later, explained that he supported that same government.

Hala Mustafa is a brave person. But when you see the stance she has to take—and I can give other examples of precisely the same exchanges by liberal intellectuals in other countries—the hopelessness of real reform or rethinking hits home very hard.

Mustafa, it may be recalled, is the editor of Egypt’s state-controlled democracy journal who got in trouble because she actually spoke a few minutes with Israel’s ambassador in her office.

The television interviewer asks her if that brief chat constituted “normalization” of relations with Israel. This is a real no-no, despite the fact that Egypt and Israel have been at peace for 30 years (happy anniversary!). The Palestinian Authority, by the way, followed the same view even during the height of the 1990s’ peace process. There was and is something pathetic and funny at watching well-intentioned Jewish peace activists running after Palestinians for dialogues in which the latter have no interest or are too fearful to do.

But the only line Mustafa can take—whether she believes it or not is another matter—is that the main reason Egypt must reform itself is to defeat Israel more effectively. She begins by saying:

“As long as we are part of the international community, and as long as we strive to belong to the developed countries, we need to speak their language.…Perhaps the reason that Israel was able to gain ground overseas, and that there is more recognition of Israel, its path, and its culture than of Arab culture, is that Israel speaks of the language of the international community….

“Interviewer: They are better integrated in the international system?”

“Dr. Hala Mustafa: Absolutely. They speak the same language, and know how to talk to them and convince them.”

“Interviewer: They are more skillful in obtaining their material, political, or moral support.”

“Dr. Hala Mustafa: Definitely. Their greatest success is in portraying the other side – the Arabs – as extremists, who carry weapons, shout, and make hysterical decisions. This image has become a stereotype, just like after 9/11, when the Muslims’ image became stereotypical and negative.”

Now I am definitely not attacking Mustafa here but merely pointing out the almost incredibly small maneuvering room such people have.

The usual response by mainstream Arab thinkers has been: You want us to talk or act like people in the West? That is a betrayal! We will not surrender an inch…. Etc., Etc. Read a speech, for example, by Syrian President Bashar al-Asad or by a lot of Arab nationalist intellectuals, as well as of course by Islamists, to hear this kind of thing.

And yet both they and Mustafa are missing a rather obvious and important point.

The Arabs have learned to speak the language of the modern international community and they are doing better at it than Israel.

Old style [which most Islamists still use, though even them not all the time]: The Jews are inferior. We will kill them all. We will never accept peace. We will wipe out Israel.

New style: The Israelis say that we are inferior. They want to kill us all. They don’t want peace. They violate our human rights. We are the victims. They want to wipe us out.

And by this brilliant inversion everything has changed. Leftist movements, humanitarian-oriented groups, huge sections of academia, large parts of the media, and various European governments bash Israel and extol the poor victims of the war criminal, racist, war-mongering, intransigent Israelis.

Of course, in fact, the positions of the Arab states and the Palestinian movement haven’t changed even in the tiniest iota. For example, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the “one-state” solution argument was something that isolated the Arabs and increased Western support for Israel. Then it was presented as: Throw Israel into the sea. Jewish-Zionist nationalism cannot be allowed to live. Palestine is Arab, Arab, Arab alone!

Today, exactly the same “one-state” concept is spun with the colored lights and tinkling bells of multiculturalism and political correctness into seeming like a utopia where nationalism is passé and everyone will just be nice to each other and get along just fine.

In short, Arab governments and societies don’t need Mustafa and the other liberals to bring a compromise triumph through real moderation. The extremists “know how to talk to them [the West and the world] and convince them.” And, to use the interviewer's words: “They [the radicals, not the moderates] are more skillful in obtaining [the West’s] material, political, or moral support.”

Israel just gets slandered but is a free and democratic country whose people are able to move forward in developing its culture, raising living standards, and enjoying freedom. The Arabs are the ones who have to live with the consequences of their own disastrous “success” in gaining international sympathy by changing nothing.

What a remarkable but horrible irony. The “progressive” and “humanitarian” forces of the West have helped make real democratic and social reform unnecessary for the Arabic-speaking world and delivered it into decades more of violence, dictatorship, repression, stagnation, and failure.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.